Rollercoaster
by pyrrhicvictoly
Summary: After the game, Dave embarks on an epic quest for normality and roller coasters that spans, like, literally billions of years. Hey, it's tough trying to have that All-American kid experience when you're a god and America doesn't exist anymore. (And are you still a kid if you're older than the Big Bang?)
**A/N:** Giftstuck 2015 fic for Iamacat, therefore written before canon ending.

* * *

"Sleep."

"Roller coasters."

Karkat turns to look at Dave with an expression that says "You are being stupid." This is because Dave is being stupid. "The question was what we're going to do first. We are alive; we are gods, for certain values of the word 'gods', and as your glorious ex-leader I vote that we sleep for fucking ever. Oh, but _you_ want to go on wiggler rides at the abusement park."

"No."

"No?"

"Not the kiddie rides, the big 'uns. Like the ones with superhero names or promises to fuck you up. The Fuck-You-Upper. That's what we're gonna ride."

Karkat knows he's a shouty bastard. He has, however, come to appreciate the effectiveness of Silent Judging Looks since getting to know Dave. It is one of these looks that he shoots Dave now, though it doesn't last long enough for full impact because one of the other douchebags clears his throat.

They are being shot amused looks from multiple directions. Eyebrows and smirks everywhere. It lasts only a second before everyone shifts their attention to the baby universe before them.

It's a blob. The stars haven't properly formed yet. There's really not much to say about it except maybe coo a little at it as if it's an ugly human baby. That's what humans do to malformed offspring, right? Pretend that they're not malformed?

"Roller coasters are a good idea," John says. "In ten billion years, maybe? I dunno, I'm suddenly reminded that I never made it past middle school science, and my school's planetarium field trip was scheduled for the week after the meteor apocalypse."

"Oooh, you were close though!" Jade nods approvingly. "Our ex-universe was 13.8 billion years old when it croaked its last."

"Need I remind you that the universe I created, and which you nooksniffers inhabited, was a cancerous stain on reality. Your species and your entire world was sprung from a cosmic tumor in god-frog's croak bubble. It fucking choked him to death on the _first_ croak."

Karkat's horror story makes Jade giggle like the uncouth witch she is. Luckily, any teasing is interrupted by Terezi's ever-astute observations. "Hey, is it just me, or is this universe forming slower than the last one?"

"Yeah, because quality takes time," Vriska says with her customary sneer. "The last one was cancer, or didn't you hear shout-boy over there."

Being a bitch is Vriska's life's calling. Karkat can't even be bothered to give her the full Vantas Fuck You Treatment. She gets a lukewarm middle finger.

Roxy joins the conversation, cheerful as ever. "So! We have 13.8 billion years to wait out, give or take, before all the tech stuff happens? I am excite! Well, and also glad we have time peeps to speed up the process."

Dave shrugs. "All right, I'll mark that on my calendar. It's a date." He swings an arm around Karkat.

"You're saying this like I'm going with you."

"Well, yeah. It's not really a date without you, bro."

This sets off a whole new chain of giggling and knowing looks. Karkat pretends not to blush as he flips everyone off. Everyone. Every last one of them. He has restocked his supply of fucks and everyone gets a sample. One for you, and for you, and for you.

The sleep plan wins out in the end because no one wants to be awake for all the billions of years it'll take for things to get interesting. Well, Dirk does, but he's batshit crazy levels of paranoid and swiftly outvoted.

They lay down on beds of void. The goddesses of space tuck them all into blankets of stardust. Galaxies bloom around them as they slumber. Karkat, too, feels himself drift away with Dave's soothing mumbles in his ear speeding up time.

Karkat was an insomniac because there was just so much stuff to worry about that his mind could never rest. On Alternia, he was constantly on guard, always watching his back for fear of being discovered. Any time he went to sleep during the game, some festering twatpustule would fuck things up for the rest of their team and Karkat would have to be the one to sort out the situation. And afterwards, on the meteor… Well, they had been riding to their near-certain doom, and sleep meant traversing through nightmare bubbles. It wasn't a very restful sweep and a half.

Now all those things are gone. For once, there is only the future to think about. No more berating Past Karkat – turns out the moron did an okay job. Sleep still isn't easy to come, because what if they fucked up this universe? It's better, though, and better still to know his friends are here beside him, safe and alive.

When they wake, the universe won't be an ugly baby anymore. (It'll be an ugly kid instead. Missing front teeth and snot everywhere and still too short to ride the Fuck-You-Upper, according to Dave's mumbles.)

* * *

 _In the beginning, there was only the Dreaming. The land and the sea and the sky did not exist. The gods were asleep in a time beyond time, in a space beyond space. They saw all that was and would be, and from this they knew exactly what must come to pass to create this world of ours. When they awoke, that was when the gods took on their sacred roles._

 _Space and Time were the first to wake, and so they became the guardians of the physical plane. Between the two, all things had their proper place. Void came to be, to fill all that was not Time or Space. Life and Breath awoke, creating all creatures great and small, and along with them came Mind and Heart and Hope and Rage to teach of self and desire, and Light and Doom to guide the creatures on their way._

 _The last to wake was Blood, who slumbered softly on while the other gods were busy making true the things they saw in the Dreaming. When Blood finally came to observe the world, the other gods said, "Brother, you have missed it all. The world is already complete."_

 _But Blood observed the beasts in the field and the birds in the sky with a frown on his face. He walked among the first humans and trolls shaking his head. "No," he said, "there is still something missing."_

 _"What is missing? All is as we saw in the Dreaming," the others said._

 _Blood pointed to the first humans and trolls, who were selfish and thought only of themselves. "They are lonely. While they walk among many others, they have no ties to bind them."_

 _So Blood created friendships, loves, and rivalries, and that is how the world was made._

* * *

Space and Time are seriously overpowered, though that's not a surprise considering they're the elements most required for the creation and continued existence of any sort of reality. It falls on them to do most of the "heavy lifting" when it comes to navigating the new universe. Seriously, it's a _whole freakin' universe_. The true scale of such a thing is beyond mortal comprehension.

It's a team effort, though. The Time players wind the cosmic clock back and forth to find the right time for life to spring up on certain planets – life that the Life players had seeded, or that had risen without their intervention. The goddesses of Light point out the path; the goddesses of Space do the moving. All the others pitch in, offering their unique abilities to the rather ill-defined cause.

In short, the goal is to find or build a home. Perhaps in the future (their own futures and not the time-traveling mess around them) they will make like real gods (whatever a "real" god is) and do nothing but float around Fondly Regarding Creation. As it stands, the gods of this universe are stuck forever (for certain values of forever) at sixteen human years old. Many of them have had shitty upbringings; many of them miss their mommies/daddies/abusive monster bros custodians.

Dave is the one who names their quest "Fruity Rumpus Bullshit Jaunt Through the Ages". There was a memo and everything. 13.8 billion years is a hella fucking long time, man. They are the god equivalent of being on a road trip in a minivan with way too many kids. The destination is all the way across the country, and since there's way too many fucking kids, they've gotta stop at every gas station and rest stop along the freeway because Bobby needs to piss, then Nellie wants to see America's largest ball of yarn, then Susie needs to piss. Also, mommy and daddy are dead, their corpses rotting in the trunk while Nellie commandeers the minivan with her learner's permit and _fuck_ that metaphor got depressing.

Dave and Karkat's first post-game date is… not really a date? It's far from the roller coaster extravaganza he had been planning. They are watching primordial soup bubble. Over yonder hill, Feferi is exclaiming how she can feel the Life potential on this planet, whichever one it is now. There have been so many.

"You know how ironic it is? That I'm a god now, have been a god since the beginning of time in this universe, and I'm still eating alchemized copies of the chips and Easy Mac that I captchalogued from under Bro's futon? That shit is ironic gold."

Dave is fucking annoying. Karkat facepalms to keep himself from defecating over the corpse of Romance, which Dave just ruthlessly slaughtered with his version of small talk. Romance had already been sick for a long time, the intergalactic roadtrip atmosphere not being good for its frail asthmatic body and shit, what is up with these stupid metaphors. It still says something, though, that Dave is the least annoying person Karkat can think of to hang out with. His idiocy is endearing in a... special way. Redrom is kind of gross like that, like putting up with the other person's faults and feeling happier in their presence even when they're being, um, especially Dave-like. Or something. Shit.

Karkat takes Dave's hand in his to stop the rambling. Romance's feeble heart starts beating again, accompanied by wheezing breaths.

"Get a human roooooooom~"

Terezi cackles. Vriska snickers. Romance keels over, CPR failed. Blargh. Jesus, how hard is it to get some alone time in an entire universe populated by less than a hundred people?

* * *

 _As the gods chose their acolytes from among the First Peoples, they expounded upon the glory of their Aspects and their subsequent mastery over the forces of nature and beyond._

 _[…]_

 _"Yea," said the Heir of Breath, "for whosoever chooseth to worship Breath, by which I mean me, shall learneth the ways of the Windy Thing, and be musically gifted, and also I will maybe take you on flights and stuff."_

 _"Nay!" said the Page of Breath, for rivalry between the brothers was strong, "Whosoever chooseth to worship *me* shall learneth Breath as a means of healing and communication, which is far better than the destruction of the Windy Thing! And also I will maybe take you on flights and stuff."_

 _[…]_

 _The Knight of Time had not yet chosen any acolytes. He remained stoic, as steady and unyielding as Time itself. The gathered First Peoples looked to him with unease, waiting for their god to speak._

 _"Yo," said the Knight of Time. "Sup, homies. Whosoever chooses to sticketh with me will learneth to throweth down the illest of beats and set down fires that are so strict they maketh volcanoes weepeth, eth, eth. By the way, now that you guys have discovered disposable income and all that shiz, you should consider investing in amusement parks. Eth."_

 _There was much silence after the god's declaration, for none had understood a single word of what he had said. A priestess was henceforth appointed to translate for the Knight of Time, in whose most ancient tongue held echoes of the wisdom of bygone days._

* * *

There are a lot of things Dave never expected he would be known for. He never expected that, after his regularly scheduled hundred year nap, he would wake up to find his temple had become a rabbit sanctuary. Because he was the god of rabbits now. Or something.

Come on. Dude, what.

If anyone were to ask Dave who among their group should be the god of rabbits, he would have said John first, because of Con Air. Then it would be the rest of the Harlishcrockerbert clan because they had buck teeth and were sweet like soft cuddly bunnies.

"Is it the albino thing?" he asked Dirk, whose mountain tribes had begun making rudimentary computers out of bronze and glass tubing.

"Bro, the bunnies on your land are all brown or spotted. I don't think your people have graduated to experimenting on lab animals yet, so chances of albino rabbits entering their culture in that way are next to nil."

"Wow, thanks. I wake up smothered in fluffy bunnies and nobody has an explanation, not even you."

"Did you, you know, ask your people?"

"Duh? Like, obviously that was the first thing I did? They said 'all hail the Knight of Rabbits, he hath returneth' and threw more fluffy bunnies at my feet. I can't take this anymore, man. The sheer cuteness level is enough to wreak havoc on my cool. What kind of god squeals over bunnies?"

"Well. It's a very god thing to be fickle teenagers with dubious morals. Just ask the Greeks - Zeus raped everything. I'm sure your people will forgive you for your rabbit-related indiscretions. They will be zuipper-pips about your cuddling habits."

"Fuck you, Dirk. You're no help at all. Why do I even bother asking you shit?"

Dirk shrugs and turns back to watching his people make crazy robot shit with their primitive tools. Dave just shakes his head at the thought of the evil steampunk empire his brother will be heading in the next hundred or so years. Dave's own people are keeping calm, farming on, and… oh shit.

"Keep calm and farm on." That was the last thing Dave said to them before his latest nap. "You are calm like soft bunnies," he had mumbled.

Dave's priestess is a menace. Or, well, his shiny new _Order of the Priestesses of Time and Bunnies_. They are menaces. All they ever do is sit around and misinterpret his awesome raps, like seriously, did Dave ask for bunnies all over his Temple of Time? Fuck no. (Did Dave ask Tavros to come riding up to his Temple of Time while in Link cosplay on the back of a Horsearoni? Also no, but that one was so freaking nerdy it went back around to being awesome. Who knew trolls had Zelda?)

It was just his luck that they took his one throwaway comment to heart, but still hadn't built an amusement park in his honor. Woe. However was he supposed to fill the gaping amusement-park-shaped hole in his childhood.

Not that the roller coaster thing is really all _that_ important, but it helps to have something to focus (or fixate) on. All religions are pretty much wrong in Dave's book. The religion that worships him? Awesome, but still wrong. Dirk is right: the gods of this world are dumbass kids. It's frightening for Dave to know that he is among the highest authorities on all matters concerning the universe. Who the hell thought they should be put in charge of the fate of Everything? They're just playing Doodle God with the lives of billions, that's all. None of them are worth worshiping.

Dumbass kid stuff is how Dave copes with his situation. Someday… Someday, Dave will have summer vacations full of drippy ice cream and bumper car rides in place of rooftop beatdowns. There will be fireworks at night. He'll get to make out with his boyfriend under the stars. The destruction of multiple universes be damned, Dave Strider is going to get his fucking teenage dream. He is doing it. He is making it hapen.

All of that will come in time. For now, he has a shouty troll to visit. (He'll get to lie on the beach instead of flat on his back on sun-baked concrete.) Dave takes the short flight to Karkat's island with a bunny under each arm. He finds Karkat on the beach, as expected, shouting to a rapt audience… of crabs. There are so many crabs. There are no words for how many tiny crabs are hanging around Karkat's beach.

"Shut up, Dave. They remind me of my dad."

"Dude, I just got here. I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking it."

"Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I leave you alone for a century – what is that in god time, like a second? – and you've built a crustacean army."

"Hopbeasts," Karkat says. A suitable comeback. Said hopbeasts snuffle along the beach, nudging the occasional crab.

"Yeah, I always thought I was more of a cawbeast guy myself, but you know how it is. Priestesses. Mind-altering drugs. My rhymes being too rad for mortal ears to comprehend. All that good stuff. I'm going to name one Liv Tyler and give her to John."

Karkat snorts and rolls his eyes, but doesn't protest when Dave makes himself at home on the beach. The sun is bright enough to be uncomfortable even behind his shades, and the sand gets everywhere. Dave is being crawled on by curious crabs; every once in a while, the bunnies snuffle at him. Oh, and behind the treeline, Karkat's followers spy on them and, uh, pray and burn incense in their honor and it's really fucking weird.

But, well, it's still kind of nice.

"Hey Karkat, do you think we could get some ice cream around here?"

Karkat lies down beside him. "Hah! I wish!"

* * *

 _There are many different traditions within Aspect worship. In some traditions the Aspects are merely metaphors for natural phenomena or the energies that drive the world. They say that perhaps earlier peoples, lacking the technology and scientific vocabulary we have today, ascribed godlike qualities to things they could not otherwise explain. While the divinity of the Aspects is shunned, followers find value in the traditional meditation or prayer practices of Aspectism. These traditions, known collectively as Philosophical Aspectism, are largely deist, or even atheist at the extreme end._

 _The Church of the Twelve Aspects, however, is built on the belief in a singular creator god known as Genesis, commonly depicted as a frog. The Genesis Frog is a cornerstone of many religions outside of Aspect worship as well._

 _The Twelve Aspects are thus aspects of Genesis; there are furthermore multiple Avatars for each Aspect. The Avatars represent different facets of each Aspect. For example, one might pray to the Seer of Light for guidance during times when the path forward is not clear, but appeal to the Thief of Light for her favor when gambling. The two different facets of Light here are illumination and luck._

 _However, not all Avatar roles are so easy to parse from their titles. One Avatar of note is the Knight of Time. Knight, of course, is a popular role and easy to parse – it means protector. But the protector of time? How does one protect time?_

 _In frescoes dated to late antiquity, the Knight of Time is shown in his House of Gears, overseeing the turning of each cog. Far from being an impassive observer, however, he cares for the machinery and adds new parts as new souls are born. If the Maid of Time is the Reaper, to be prayed to for peaceful passage to the afterlife, then the Knight is her opposite. A guardian of one's "lifetime", perhaps. Biological life is the domain of the Life Aspect, but having "the time of one's life" is considered a worshipful phrase only among dedicates to the Knight of Time._

 _This interpretation is at the root of the many myths where the Knight of Time is consort to the Knight of Blood who is, of course, protector of bonds. Prayer is given to both Knights in order to ask that certain bonds, usually friendship or love, last "for a lifetime"._

* * *

"Romantic, isn't it? Mr. Strider?"

Distantly, Dave is aware of someone calling his name. He mumbles something about chilling, he'll be there in a sec, and buries his head deeper into the cradle of his arms.

"Mr. Strider!"

"Wha-?"

"Since you've obviously been paying attention, would you care to tell the class about the Knight of Time?"

"Sorry prof, what about 'im? There's tons of stuff. Major deity and all that."

"Let's start simple. Can you name one of the symbols of the Knight? And what are his supposed powers?"

"That would be… bunnies. Fluffy bunnies and ill beats."

Professor Thakis frowns at Dave, and it's probably just a trick of the light, but it looks like the prongs of his horns are wagging fingers. _Tut tut, Mr. Strider. The correct answer is…_

"Tut tut, Mr. Strider. The correct answer is cawbeasts, or crows if you will. Aside from one obscure Bronze Age cult, 'fluffy bunnies' have nothing to do with the Knight of Time."

"Oh. Guess that's cool. I can dig it."

Dave's classmates snicker. The professor sighs. "Honestly, wherever do you get your misinformation? As for 'ill beats', I can only assume you are referring to the Knight's priestesses' penchant for recording scripture in cryptic rhymes. You could have said anything at all to do with Time and it would trump that! I expected you to at least get _this_ one right… Well, I suppose I was misled by your affinity for confusing language. It is a very Knight of Time sort of thing. Are you sure you were never a Time Dedicate?"

"Nah man, you know me. Blood Dedicate all the way. My god is hotter than all the other gods and I will fight you over it."

Dave feels slightly bad for the prof, who is really trying hard to pour World Religions into his skull, but… Eh. Dave's kind of billions of years old, and he's only taking this class because he's never been a college student before. It seemed like a hilarious idea at the time, to learn what people believed about the gods nowadays. Besides, he has a hot date after class.

Sure enough, Karkat is waiting for him outside the building.

"What took you so long? Did you know I was accosted by no less than three – count 'em, _three_ \- nookfondling proselytizers telling me to repent or Cherubs would come defecate over my tormented soul? All within the ten minutes my ass has camped on this bench!"

Dave chuckles. "So you gonna rant or you wanna know what I have planned for our date?"

"Just tell me so I can go back to ranting, asshole."

"Welp. They finally finished building that amusement park in this shitty town… Remember the roller coasters I promised you? Let's make it happen."

"My god. I can't believe you're still on about that. It has literally been 13.8 billion years, Strider. Let it go."

"And _afterwards_ , I was thinking of heading down to the Temple of Blood to get my worship on."

"…All right, I think I can deal with that. Yes. Worship me, for I am your god."

"Body worship."

Karkat attempts to use his Silent Judging Look on Dave, though it doesn't work so well this time. It's kind of hard to look disdainful when he's blushing all the way to his ears.

They head to the amusement park to finally, finally ride the Fuck-You-Upper. Karkat knows it's going to be a mediocre experience. Hell, Dave knows it too. But it's a normal thing that stupid kids in love do on dates, and they will never get tired of normal.


End file.
